


Hope and Solitude

by Dragontrickru42



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/F, Introspection, Well kind of introspection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-03-11 08:53:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13520820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrickru42/pseuds/Dragontrickru42
Summary: The last words your soulmate says to you is imprinted on your skin, permanently. This is a story about the journey to that end, in the space between the words being spoken and death."Maybe just coffee, next time?""Or save the world. See what happens."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a happy story. There isn't a happy ending here. I've been thinking of this story for over a year now and I've only just started seriously writing it. So, updates will be sporadic as I finish each chapter, but I know where I'm going here. (Sidenote: if you follow my other two stories, sorry for the long wait. I've been working on them off and on but I've dropped out of the Clexa fandom for a bit.)  
> Back to this story. From the start, it's a darker take on Soulmates and the Bering and Wells relationship. I have a lot of feels about it, and some of them manifested into this. Please feel free to let me know how you feel about it. Love it, hate it, hate me, etc, I'd like to know your thoughts. Without further ado, here we go.

* * *

“That which promised happiness when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that we are two.” Charles Dickens, _A Christmas Carol_

* * *

 

        A world filled with wonder is a world filled with love. The strongest ties of that love are said to be written in the stars by the gods themselves. Humanity calls those stories ones of soulmates. This notion has existed for as long as humans have been alive. The idea that someone, somewhere, is so integral to another that they share a soul is so compelling a narrative that the only place large enough to fit them all was the heavens, the stars. The same area the mythological god Zeus ruled over.  
        The Greek philosopher Plato once theorized that the god of the skies, Zeus, feared this legendary creature so much that he split the four-armed, four-legged, and two-faced humans into two separate beings. Each being, each human, was then condemned to a lifetime of searching for their other half so that none might surpass him in the skies above. Like all Greek myths, Zeus fulfilled his own prophecy by doing so, when endless wonder filled the world.  
        Zeus was brought down, yet his curse lived on, turning ordinary love stories into fantastical tales. The most fantastical of which had no choice but to outshine Zeus and his brethren. For when the earth is full, the only way left to go is up. This is a story of one such tale.

         It goes like this: a brush of unclothed skin, a gasp, sparks.

No, it goes like this: rapid beeping as two TiMERS approach zero, a brush of arms as one passes the other, indulgent glances

        It goes like this: Unique marks, matching, and being so close, not close enough

Wait, it goes like this: a name, a name, a name so unique and so common, even when it changes

       It goes like this: a red string of fate attached to a finger, invisible to the world yet impossible to miss, impossible to sever, forever attached

Stop, it goes like this: Eyes meet, a world explodes into color OR a name is heard, and color bleeds into the world

       It goes like this: a colored band around a wrist, proclaiming to all the world who you might love and how, wrists burning, colors turning

Maybe, it goes like this: colors left everywhere, indelible marks showing who cares, a blaze of color as one cares more than the other

       It goes like this: Polite apology as one slips past the other, sizing the agent up, and apology returned as the agents allows her eyes to flicker over the women before moving on, thinking of it no more

Or, it goes like this: careless ink marks made in the heat of planning with a matched mind, a pointed observation, whispered declarations of love and understanding

       It goes like this: a blur of red and black and grey as one loves and loses, then the other, again and again, and again, never quite matching

Perhaps, it goes like this: A compass that spins ‘round and ‘round, a needle that never moves, a place to, finally, call home

       It goes like this: Strength at improbable times, a red pen covered in dust, a black pen with little ink left, the same name scribbled over and over, forever inscribed but never imprinted, never shadowed

 

       But this story isn’t those stories. Each one of those stories has its own curse with its own story to tell and its own ending to get to. In this story, the end is the beginning.

Because, it goes like this: skin marked indelibly with words, the same words forever ringing in ears, and a voice never to be heard again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shameless plug: follow me on[ tumblr ](http://slytherintothedragonsden.tumblr.com/)


	2. I hope...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helena's side of some things. Not all, but some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is pretty short. The entire story will be actually, but I've had this bit done for a while. And since we've been graced with such amazing Bering and Wells content from DragonCon, I figured if I don't put this out now, I never will. Honestly, if Jaime and Joanne being together again at last (and their interactions) can't motivate me to get a move on with this story, nothing can. Luckily for me, they more than can. 
> 
> Anyway, enough about me and how I feel after such a fantastic weekend. There's some elements in this chapter and the next that I want to explore more, and I've been toying with a Daemon AU for some time now in which to do so. That said, it'll be a pretty big story, so I was wondering if anyone was interested in being a sounding board for me, or a beta, or something. Anything really. 
> 
> To move back to this story, love it, hate it, think my writing is awkward, please feel free to let me know. And sorry for the awkward line breaks. Each break is a skip in time.

* * *

“There are all types of love in this world, but never the same love twice.” F. Scott Fitzgerald

* * *

 

When Helena was young, in a different time, she had thought that the worst thing in the world was to not have a soul mark. Already she’d proven herself to be different, to be above, her peers. She knew her fate lay not in needlework or ensnaring a rich husband and title, but in inventing and knowledge. Her curious mind was unmatched and unwanted by her suitors. As her precocious nature longed for a better world, for endless wonder, she thought the price for her intellect, and daring, was to never know the connection that existed between soulmates. She thought it was her hunt for more, for understanding, that made her mark-less. It was the only instance in which her peers bested her and it vexed her to no end. 

She might have a superior mind, but her peers. Oh, her peers! They would whisper about her behind her back. Her suitors would question her father about the state of her mark before pursuing her. And the ones who cared not for marks, or lack thereof, were men not worth her time. They, especially, saw her as naught but a thing to be had. A rarity. A chance to witness her mark bloom _for_ them, giving them more power than any dowry of hers ever could. She loathed the very idea of the marks and yet there was a part of her that longed for one regardless. Not for a reason as silly as wanting to fit in, or even wanting to get away from her more troublesome company, but because she knew it would mean there was a mind out there that could match her own. A true kindred spirit. 

Of course, that was before she knew what it meant to have a soulmate. To have mark. None of them did, back then. They thought it romantic, freeing. Helena herself succumbed to those ideas as her words curled around her stomach during her daughter’s, Christina’s, birth, right where she’d kicked the most. As if her kicking were breathing the words into life. Even after she lost her Christina, she didn’t understand how cruel the words really were, so focused was she on getting her soulmate back.

And then she stepped out of the Bronze and into a world that thought the marks damning instead of the salvation they had been in her time. A sentiment she found she agreed with. One of the only things she could agree with in a world just as bleak as the one she’d left behind. For a century of loss, of mourning, had led her to the conclusion that the worst thing in the world was to have a soulmate. Worse still was to lose that soulmate to an act of senseless violence. To witness her daughter’s death again and again and again, helpless to stop it, helpless to save her. To hear her daughter’s voice ring in her ears, relentless, as she said the words that damned them both. Words that had once given Helena false hope; words that had driven her mad as they followed her into the Bronze. 

‘I love you Mummy.’

———————————-

What the Regents had failed to tell Helena, and what her own research didn’t uncover, was that a person kept their awareness after being Bronzed. They weren’t conscious, not really, but they could feel the passing of time. It wasn’t a tangible sensation, only the barest hint of a whisper washing against their skin. No, no words or physical sensations penetrated their Bronze shell, only the vague feeling that time was continuing on. Being Bronzed was not unlike being eternally drowned. There was no room for breath, no real need for it, but the mind kept trying anyway. It couldn’t process being alive with being unable to live, or move. The only distraction from that warring sensation is one’s thoughts. And, as Helena discovered, the only outcome is madness. No one should be alone with their thoughts for that long.

In her frozen state, Helena missed the searing pain as her soul mark changed, years before she was to be unwillingly un-Bronzed. But she didn’t miss the difference, hours after her awakening when she, at last, saw her mark again. When she saw how it had changed. The change only served to cement her plans. After all, how could she forgive a world that took away her happiness and then mocked it? The last thing she had of her daughter, the one thing time was supposed to leave well enough alone, was _gone._ In its place was something so similar it could only be some great cosmic joke, some trick of the heavens meant to scorn her. For no one could ever compare to her Christina. 

—————————————

At first, she kept the words uncovered to remind her of her plans. The Warehouse had a certain allure to it, and the people within…She could feel their draw. She traced the words upon her ribs nightly, a ritual warped from before. There were the faintest hints of stretch marks just below it, another reminder of why she must go through with her plans. A reminder that goods things don’t last, that as welcoming as Myka and the others had been, they were outliers. The world had not changed, not really, and so it did not deserve to keep on going. Not when her Christina couldn’t. 

After her plan was ruined, after Myka stopped her, the Janus Coin and the orb was a relief. She wasn’t sure, didn’t care to know really, if Emily Lake had words written on her skin. Within the orb Helena didn’t exist, not in so many words, and outside it she had no corporeal body for the words to mar. It was a relief. A balm to her madness. Unlike the Bronze, there was no time for thought or reflection within the orb. And so there was no time, or space, for madness. The end to her healing was brought on, and then foiled, by Sykes.

Eventually, as the madness receded, Helena forced herself to forget about her mark. While she couldn't rid herself of it, something she’d tried, once, something Myka had explained when questioned, she could cover it up. So she did, until the time came that her eyes went over it with nary a thought. Until it became as unremarkable as any other blemish on her skin. And when the time came to return the astrolabe to the Brotherhood, she’d abandoned her nightly ritual entirely. She started to try and move on; she started to try to live in this new world. To do so, she had to leave her old world behind.

The Warehouse was a continuous reminder of what she lost, of what she’d done, so she couldn’t return there. Not if she wanted to keep her newfound sanity. She didn’t trust that the madness would stay away if she went back, if she experienced an endless wonder that might bring her Christina back. Mrs. Frederic, knowing as always, provided her with new credentials before Helena could even begin to tell her of her decision. Thus, her body, with her mind in tow this time, took on Emily’s life once more. H.G. Wells, Warehouse Agent, became Emily Lake, Forensic Scientist. 

—————————————-

“Maybe just…coffee next time?” Helena offered, seeing Myka into the car. 

“Or save the world. See what happens.” Myka smiled at her, one Helena gladly returned. It wavered as Peter pulled the car onto the street and she watched Myka turn back, to wave goodbye. She forced herself to ignore the tears forming in both their eyes, returning the wave as a pained smile made its way onto her face. The smile fell when the car’s taillights faded into the distance. She watched the last wink of red disappear before turning back to Nate’s house, to her house, and forcing the unwanted, nay, the unwarranted, emotions down. Myka had asked her to make this place her home, and so she would try. Not as Emily Lake, but as Helena George Wells. 

————————————-

“Helena? I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanted to let you know that it looks like I’m going to miss that raincheck for coffee. Pete and I have to save the world, again. Maybe for the last time, you know how it goes” A choked laugh sounded. “It’s- It’s looking pretty bad though, Helena. And I know it’s been, God, years, but just in case…Just in case, I want you to know something. It’s selfish of me, but after everything I can’t- I won’t pretend anymore. I love you, Helena-“ The message clicked off. 

————————————————

Myka’s words all but consumed Helena’s thoughts as she dialed a number she knew by heart. Her call was picked up before the second ring.

“H.G.? Not the best time.” Claudia’s voice was harried, frantic, and left a chill in Helena’s veins. 

“I thought that might be the case. Is Myka okay? She left me the strangest voice message-“ Helena began. 

“Myka called you? Oh this is not good. This is so not good.” Claudia interrupted, her voice fading out as she refocused her attention on whatever it was she was doing. 

“I gathered. Is something the matter Claudia? Is the Warehouse in danger? Is Myka? I can be there within the day. Just tell me what is going on.” Helena offered, not knowing what response she wished for. She’d helped the team out before, with her shrink ray. Myka and Pete had been gone on a case and the whole business around Artie’s heart and an artifact was resolved before they returned. She hadn’t seen Myka since the woman had left Boone, after the jawbone incident. Her musings were cut short by a shout from Claudia. 

“NO!” Claudia paused, gathering herself. “No, that’s okay. We’ve got it-“ She cut off by a voice on her side of the line. A voice imprinted on Helena’s soul.

“Mummy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much like Tinkerbell, I crave attention. I won't die without it, I'm not quite so dramatic anymore, but it is [nice](http://slytherintothedragonsden.tumblr.com).


	3. ...or I could not live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some of Myka's side of things, and a brief glimpse at Pete's, leading up to the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll never be convinced we weren't robbed of Bering and Wells. Two great songs to listen to (courtesy of the show itself): [Atlantis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hstt2EG9Us) by Ellie Goulding, and [So Easily](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9SNgc1EP-k) by Kathryn Calder. The former is the song that plays when Myka and Pete leave Helena in Boone, and I love it so much I hate it. But enough of me, for now, please enjoy this chapter. All mistakes are mine, so feel free to let me know if something is hinky so I can (try to) fix it. 
> 
> Sorry that it's a bit of a rushed chapter. And for the awkward line breaks. I never quite know what the words will look like when I paste them on this site, even though I really should by now, and I'm so partial to how they look where I've written them that I can't bring myself to change it. I couldn't find the author of the second quote used, about fathers, so whoever it is out in the void, thanks for it. I'll probably re-edit this chapter before I post the next one, when I'm feeling less sentimental about it.

* * *

“All night the sound had come back again, and again falls this quiet, persistent rain…” ‘The Rain’ by Robert Creeley

* * *

 

What does it mean to have a soulmate? Myka grew up wondering why her, of all people, had not one, but two sets of words that marred her skin. Double the (mis)fortune. Her mom would cry on the rare occasions she caught a glimpse of the words, mourning Myka’s future before she could even get there. It was her father’s gaze that weighed heaviest though. From the moment Warren Bering laid eyes on her marks nothing she did was good enough for him. It was a different type of mourning altogether. So as soon as she was old enough to understand the marks, to understand what they meant, what they represented, she began to hate them. Myka envied the unmarked, those rare few like Tracy who wasn’t trapped by wonder. Tracy, who their mother had never looked at as if she were already gone. Tracy, who is someone their father can be proud of. Tracy, who is the opposite of Myka in every way. Pretty, popular, mark-less, free. Tracy, who is everything Myka had always felt she can never be. Not with the chicken-scratch scrawled across the arch of her foot. Not with the calligraphy gliding below her collarbone.

————————————————————————————

Even Sam and the freedom he provided, the love he gave so freely, couldn’t quell her loathing. Only temper it. His death, the injustice of it, almost broke her. It wasn’t fair. Seeing his wife’s words, the color of them, did break her.

But even her transfer to D.C., to protecting the President, wasn’t enough for her family. The distance wasn’t enough for her dreams either. Yet it was the transfer to the Warehouse that felled her demons. In a world filled with endless wonder, her marks could only ever pale in comparison.

———————————————————————————

Myka read somewhere, once, a quote that she couldn’t quite push away as she looked over her father’s unfinished novel.

“There’s nothing worse than a man that can be everything to everybody else…except a father to their own child.” She recited to herself, conflicted. In her hands was proof of her father’s love, of his pride. It was something he had denied her all her life. Only, his stoicism wasn’t a denial if she believed his words now. Merely a faltering in his ability to show his love.

The quote haunted her as she settled in to read, her own voice ringing in her ears as the words echoed their earlier sentiments when she’d been reading to her father.

The Blue Willow Sky

by Warren Bering

Chapter 1

When the girl was born, his first thought was fear….for her. For his daughter. She was his life. His only job now was keeping her safe…

As she read, she didn’t know if her father’s written words were enough. Not anymore. The ache that thought left behind lingered until she met a woman whose words had the power to write over her father’s.

———————————————————————————-

Myka remembers burning. Not in a flash of heat, but in a slow roar of fire. It consumes her, the flames licking at her body. It’s painless until the fire reaches her neck. Until it reaches that place just below her left clavicle (the costoclavicular ligament, her mind reminds her) where scrawled calligraphy is etched onto her skin. Then the pain comes and hollows her out, telling a story she has no memory of, a story her body was forced to forget and couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.

It’s this painful awakening that causes Myka to look back over Artie’s unusual behavior from before she retired, hours after the Warehouse is saved and Claudia is talked down, for the moment. Helena is allowed to stay for the night, at least, after Artie’s vehement support for her. To say they had been surprised is an understatement, but Myka had just been thankful to have Helena back. She spoke with the inventor a bit before parting for bed, with the understanding they’d finish their conversation the next morning. But the easy acceptance of Artie’s change of heart isn’t enough, not after her dream. Her memory?

Despite her exhaustion, the burning nags at Myka, keeping her from resting. Worried, she goes to check the mark on her chest and can hardly contain her gasp at the sight of it. The words have changed. At her acknowledgment of this, the burning lessens and it’s with no small amount of unease that she checks her other mark. The scant four letters that had once been inked along her foot have changed. The command has turned into a question comprised of one word. Her eyes are drawn back to the first mark as her mind races to puzzle together this development. It’s another question, this one longer than the other but only by a handful of words.

Myka isn’t the one to get vibes, but the burning becomes a vicious churning in her gut as it dawns on her what must have happened. Her concerned eyes stare back at her from the mirror as she realizes what Artie, and it had to have been Artie, had changed.

Artie had, quite literally, rewritten the past.

—————————---------------------------------

Pete had never thought having a soulmate was a bad thing. He saw the love between his mom and his dad and it felt right. He knew, vaguely, what it meant to be soulmates. He knew it meant one of them had to die for their words to be said and the connection to be fully realized. But he saw the life between his parents and he thought that maybe, not even death, could separate them. So when the day came that he got a really bad vibe about his dad, he brushed it off. He couldn’t imagine anything tearing his parents apart, tearing his dad from his family.

It was at his dad’s wake that he began to understand what it really meant to have a soulmate. To have one part of yourself die. His mom’s words had turned grey and wispy, like ashes in the wind. Like the remnants of a fire. It was a cruel reminder of his father’s death and he watched it break his mom. He watched her trace her words, each pass turning her more and more listless. He started to resent it, to resent how his sister Jeannie never received her words. To resent how she wouldn’t ever be able to hear them if did have any. The resentment upset him greatly, the injustice in his own thoughts devastating him, to the point that his family noticed his irregular behavior through their own grief-tinted lenses.

When he told them, ashamed, his mom and sister shared a look. And then his mom smiled at him, with tears pooling in her eyes. ‘Peter’, she said, ‘My grief would be no less if your father wasn’t my soulmate. I didn’t love him for the possibility of a connection. I love— loved him because he was a good man, and a great father. The mark he left on me…It does make me sad, I won’t lie to you about that. But when I look at it, it’s as if I’m looking at him again. It’s a reminder that he’ll always be with me. And with you. He loved you both so much.’

After that, his resentment faded. He still couldn’t cherish his words as his friends did, but he made a promise to himself after that conversation. When he found his other half, he’d cherish their time together in the present. He wouldn’t let his fear of the future get in the way of whatever time he had with the people he loved.

——————————————-----------------------

It’s so innocuous a phrase, and yet when Myka hears it, her heart stops. She replies, hoping to see recognition in the eyes of the brilliant woman before her, but there’s nothing. So she lets the moment go, allowing herself one, two, three, more last glances as Pete drives them away. She attempts to memorize the woman in those glances, giving a half-hearted wave to draw one last response from a person she knows she’ll never get to see again. Her lip quirks as the woman disappears from view, her heart aching. Pete side-eyes her, uneasy.

“Was that…?” He lets the question linger, eyes flicking to Myka’s chest then back up. She nods, tears spilling out of her and suddenly she can’t breathe. She can’t-She won’t- Her sobs rattle her bones as panic washes over her. Pete pulls the car over and gathers her into his arms, his light touch trying to soothe her. “Hey Mykes, c’me here.” He says, drawing her as close as they can get in the car. Pete knows there’s nothing he can say, so he doesn’t. He just holds her, his insides churning. Soon enough Myka will pull away and they’ll get back on the road, leaving this behind them. Leaving H.G. Wells, one of Myka’s soulmates and a part of their family, behind them. But for now, he gives her what little solace he can.

It isn’t enough right now, and he can only hope it will be in the future as his own tears slip out.

———————————————————————————-

They never got coffee. Or saved the world together. Or saw what happened. Helena was always busy when Myka called and Myka was always busy when Helena called, throwing herself into her work to push down the growing ache in her chest. The calls turned to texts, and text messages to emails as the ache spread down her body. At first, Myka wondered why one of these messages wasn’t written on her skin. For once, it was Pete who had the answer. After his sister’s accident, he had researched soulmarks, not wanting her to miss out on hers, and found that they only appeared in the language the person knew best. The universe trying to give people their best chance of connection even as it took them away.

His own mark had been illegible since he’d gotten it, something that meant his soulmate wasn’t ready for him yet. There were other marks that appeared in binary, sign language, braille. The marks had no barriers in their quest to impart pain on every person they could. The irony of it all didn’t escape Myka.

Which is why she wondered what Helena’s mark said in the days, weeks, and months that passed by after each message. Which of her words stuck, if any. In what was rapidly looking to become Myka and Pete’s last mission together as the burning overwhelmed her, she gave in to her wonder, to her selfishness. Her imagination would have to be enough, even when it wasn’t.

The doctors called it cancer, and the words on her chest never stopped hurting through-out the procedure. Her imagination never stopped either, wondering if each moment would be her last. If Helena would know. If it was worse that she wouldn’t. After, after her surgery and the echoing of the word ‘benign’, after Paracelsus and a working time machine, after countless hours spent in the H.G. Wells section of the Warehouse, the ache lessened. Myka knew what she had to do, one day.

She just never expected that day to come so soon after yet another seemingly last mission. The lack of reprieve told her all she never wanted to know.

———————————————————————————-

Helena missed the call. Myka knew she would. The time traveler had already said her words, had already dyed her skin a hated bronze. There was nothing left to say on Helena’s part, even if she didn’t know it. Still… she missed the call.

“Helena? I don’t have a lot of time. I just wanted to let you know that it looks like I’m going to miss that raincheck for coffee. Pete and I have to save the world, again. Maybe for the last time, you know how it goes” She choked out a laugh, pushing her panic down. “It’s- It’s looking pretty bad though, Helena. And I know it’s been, God, years, but just in case…Just in case, I want you to know something. It’s selfish of me, but after everything I can’t- I won’t pretend anymore. I love you, Helena-“ A beep cut Myka off, the message abruptly ending as her phone died on her. It would have to be enough, even though Myka knew it couldn’t ever be. There were so many things she still wanted to say. But-

“Mykes, you ready?” She turned to look at Pete, clearing her mind. He smiled reassuringly, and she would’ve cried at the understanding in his eyes if there had been time. He knew. She had confirmed his suspicions after Boone when she broke down, and he knew she knew. She nodded, knowing they had to do the right thing, the only thing. She took the hand he held out to her, needing the connection just as much as he did as a bright light bore down on them.

“Together?” Myka’s lips quirked up, matching his resolve with her own.

“Together.”

————————————————————

It was enough. It had to be.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Instead of shamelessly asking for your attention for myself, I'd like to recommend a fanfic I adore. It's called [Blood and Bronze](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8338286/1/Blood-and-Bronze) and it's by Restless Goddess on FF. I mean, I love almost every Bering & Wells story I've read to date, but this is one I find myself rereading often. 
> 
> I would also like to clarify that while this chapter hints at Pyka, that's all this story will do on that front. I truly believe that Pete and Myka could be good together, romantically, but the arc the show had them on (as condensed as it had to be) wasn't a good path to it. And that Helena is, overall, much better suited to Myka than Pete, despite the diverging paths the show had them on. I won't go into all I have to say on the topic, I just wanted to let anyone reading this know what's in the cards and what isn't. That said, Pete is still very important to Myka, and Myka to Pete, which is why I've made them ambiguous soulmates. At least I hope that's how they've come off. Let me know if I did or not. Thanks for your time.


End file.
